Too cheap to meter.

[dckosloff@aep.com]

"Too cheap to meter" showed up in a recent  comment on Greenpeace.   I
remain skeptical that "Too cheap to meter"  was ever taken seriously until
the quote was dug from the NY Times morgue by anti-nukes (I believe the
first was Dan Ford in The Cult of the Atom).  I have a copy of the actual
quote as it appeared in the Times(page 5) on September 17, 1954 under the
headline, "ABUNDANT POWER FROM ATOM SEEN,"  with the sub heading, "It Will
Be Too Cheap for Our Children to Meter, Strauss Tells Science Writers" .
Here is most of the article:

*       *       *
Rear Admiral Lewis L. Strauss, chairman of the Atomic Energy commission,
predicted here last night that industry would have electrical power from
atomic furnaces in five to fifteen years.

"Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to
meter," he declared.

He reported that in Brussels yesterday Dr. Lawrence Hafstad, head of the
reactor development division of the Atomic Energy Commission, was prepared
to be asked at the Congress of Industrial Chemistry, the following
question:  "How soon will you have industrial atomic electric power in the
United States?"  Admiral Strauss said Dr. Hafstad was prepared to answer:
"From 5 to 15 years, depending upon the vigor of the development effort."

Admiral Strauss said this time scale could be shortened if research were
pushed.  Of the nation's $8,000,000,000 atomic program he said:

"Transmutation of the elements, unlimited power, ability to investigate the
working of living cells by tracer atoms, the secret of photosynthesis about
to be uncovered, these and a host of other results, all in fifteen short
years,

It is not too much to expect that our children will know of great periodic
regional famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel
effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a
minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a life span far
longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes
him to age."

*       *       *

Once I found the actual Times quote, I looked in other contemporary
newspapers and magazines for additional discussion of this "promise".   I
have not found the quote mentioned in any other contemporary publication.
I have also found no evidence that the "nuclear industry", "planners",
"experts", "the utilities", engineers or scientists supported this quoted
prediction.  I have found contemporary articles that explained why nuclear
energy would cost about the same as other energy sources.  On Nuclear
Energy,  published in 1957 clearly explained that nuclear energy would only
be competitive with coal or oil under special circumstances.   The book ,
written specifically to explain nuclear energy to laymen, had its forward
written by Admiral Strauss.  Interestingly, the book also discussed using
tracers in human subjects for medical research, the "secret" radiation
experiments.

Don Kosloff
dkosloff@ncweb.com


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